


Discovered Check

by waketosleep



Series: Perpetual Check [1]
Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Chess, Gen, smart!Kirk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-20
Updated: 2010-01-20
Packaged: 2017-10-06 12:12:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/53529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waketosleep/pseuds/waketosleep
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spock discovers that Kirk has been holding out on him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Discovered Check

"Come in," Jim said when the door chimed. He was at the desk in his quarters, catching up on paperwork.

"Captain."

"Mr. Spock." He looked up from the supply list he was checking to see Spock standing rigidly in the doorway. "What can I do for you?"

Spock walked farther into the room but stayed standing. "Captain, are you aware of the running score of our regular chess matches?"

_Were we keeping track?_ Jim thought wildly, but just shrugged. "You win a lot...."

"You have never beaten me, Jim."

Huh. So he hadn't. "Okay?"

Spock looked slightly... uncomfortable? Annoyed? Both were pretty normal for him, though.

"I was in the mess hall, moving to an unoccupied seat to take my evening meal, and my route took me past Mr. Chekov and Mr. Sulu, who were eating and conversing loudly, as is their habit."

Jim nodded for him to get on with it.

Spock arched an eyebrow. "I overheard Mr. Chekov discussing an occasion upon which you and he played chess for money."

Jim put down the supply list and leaned back in his chair. He was beginning to see where this was going.

"He quite angrily informed Mr. Sulu that you 'cleaned him out'. I understand this to mean that you won a substantial amount of money from him by defeating him at chess."

Jim scratched his ear. "That's an excellent interpretation of the colloquialism, Mr. Spock."

Spock was not done. He had moved to stand in front of Jim's desk. "I was very curious to hear how this could be, given your generally abysmal performance in our regular games, and so I found Dr. McCoy in the hope that he could illuminate the matter for me."

Jim closed his eyes and mentally cursed Bones roundly. If that had any effect in the real world though, Bones would likely have been dead several times over already. It still felt good.

"Imagine my surprise, Jim, when the good doctor informed me that you were, in fact, involved in the chess club in your first year at the academy, and maintained a FIDE rating of over 2400 during that time."

"Yeah," Jim drawled, "I ended up quitting that club. More women in the Xenolinguistics society."

Spock's eyes narrowed.

"Chekov's rating is only like 2250?" he tried.

Spock's expression didn't change.

Jim sighed. "Do you think I've been letting you win or something?"

"That is highly improbable. I do believe that you have not been giving me the benefit of your full attention when we play."

Jim winced, because maybe Spock was a little bit right. He did tend to use those sessions as time to relax, and didn't care so much about winning as being distracted for a while. Playing for money was a different story, especially against a brat like Chekov.

Spock saw and correctly interpreted his flinch, because he suddenly looked satisfied. "I trust, then, that future matches will see you putting in a more appropriate effort."

"Dammit, Spock," he sighed, pushing his paperwork aside (it was a lost cause for that night). "Do you want to play chess? Fine, we'll play chess. Go set up the board." He pointed at the coffee table where his board always sat, and shook his head as Spock marched straight over to unearth the pieces from under piles of paperwork and coffee cups.

_More appropriate effort, huh? We'll see about that,_ Jim thought acidly as he got up, stretching, and followed Spock to the sitting area, with a quick detour to the replicator for some coffee. He brought Spock a glass of water, which he accepted with a nod.

"Whose turn for white?" he asked as he settled on the couch.

"Yours," Spock said from the armchair opposite, reaching for his drink as he set up the last of the pieces.

And so Jim began, using a favourite gambit.

***

Normally, when they played chess, Jim would be relaxed and talkative, sometimes taking a long time to ponder a move (typically when Spock had created a trap around him which he would most likely not defeat) and more often moving with apparent little thought. He made frequent bad judgements in play and appeared to have no strategy beyond two or three moves into the future. Spock got no challenge from their games but enjoyed the company anyway.

The difference when Jim was invested in a game was shocking. He did not sprawl against the couch but hunched over the table, his elbows on his knees and his hands fisted in front of his mouth, watching the board most of the time. He was silent. He rarely spent more than five seconds in thought before making a move, and his body language when he did so was always decisive and confident.

It drove Spock to distraction.

"Check," Jim said suddenly, thirty minutes into the game. It was the first thing he had said. Spock startled and looked at the board, gaping at the knight Jim had just placed.

"I have used this trap on you," he said wonderingly.

"Works great," Jim agreed, grinning. "Worst case scenario, I figure you'll show me how to get out of it."

And that was a characteristic Jim Kirk strategy, if Spock had ever heard one. He stared at the board in consternation, flicking occasional glances up at Jim, who was grinning devilishly behind his laced fingers. He should have seen the trap coming, and would have, if he hadn't been so thrown by the complete change in behaviour of his opponent. He should have known what he was getting himself into when he asked for Jim's full attention in a chess game. The results were deeply unsettling.

In the end, a bishop sacrifice put him in a more advantageous position, and he breathed easily for two more turns, until Jim furrowed his brow in a way Spock rarely saw, and moved a rook so that he would be at check again in three moves.

Spock took a long drink of water to cover his annoyance (_deeply_ unsettling) and then applied himself to defending his grandmaster status. He hadn't found himself thinking this much about chess since his last game against his father, several years previously. Jim had stopped staring at the board and started staring at him instead, his lips constantly twitching with mirth, and it was nearly more than Spock could take.

"Check," he said finally, the board becoming empty of pieces.

Jim studied the setup briefly and then moved out of check.

This happened twice more, until Jim took his queen in a brilliant manoeuvre, and then in another two moves Spock was in check himself.

He stared at the board, bereft of black pieces. He looked at Jim, who was looking back at him steadily.

"I concede," he said finally.

Jim knocked over his king with a satisfied expression. "Was that an appropriate enough effort?" he asked.

Spock couldn't resist a twitch of the lips at his captain's nonchalant arrogance. "I found it acceptable."

A warm feeling uncurled in his stomach as he contemplated his captain, who leaned back into the couch, smirking at being underestimated. A dangerous thing to do, with Jim, and a lesson Spock would do well to internalize before the next time he was tempted to forget his intelligence, well-hidden as it was.

Spock wondered if he could convince him to play one more game before the night was over.

 

THE END


End file.
